Sustainable Energy for All, co-chaired by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, is a global initiative that aims to provide universal access to modern electricity and cooking solutions, double energy efficiency improvement rate, and double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.
Read More »

Last week at the SE4ALL meeting in New York, Divuben Rathod, a salt miner from Gujarat shared the voice of 30,000 poor women whose lives have been transformed by solar water pumps. Her snapshot of a sustainable energy future moved delegates at the UN Forum. Read More »

Focus of the World Bank Group - Energy for All. "I truly believe that ending poverty and ensuring sustainability are the defining challenges of our time. And access to sustainable energy is central to both of them." World Bank Group President Jim Yong KimRead More »

"Financing is the key to achieving these objectives," said World Bank Group President Kim. "To reach our goals for access to energy, energy efficiency, and renewable energy, we need to mobilize an additional $600-$800 billion a year from now to 2030."Read More »

The Bank helps countries find renewable energy solutions wherever possible. Projects include support for concentrating solar plants in North Africa, off-grid household solar in Mongolia, wind farms in Turkey, and geothermal power in Kenya.Read More »

SE4ALL efforts focus on countries where access rates are lowest. The World Bank energy roadmap plans to reach 20 countries with the goal of catalyzing access to electricity and modern cooking fuels for 200 million people by 2030.Read More »

NEW YORK—Imagine the world as you’d like to
see it in 2030. What does it look like? My fellow panelists
and I were asked this question as part of a discussion of
ac... Show More +cess to energy as a driver of gender equality during UN
Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) consultations last
week.CSW, now in its 59th year, opens annually on
International Women’s Day, March 8, and this year drew a
record crowd—with some 4,400 NGO participants from 640
organizations, up from the previous record of 3,443
representatives from 464 organizations in 2010. An
additional 25,000 passes were printed for UN delegates,
media, and others. 2015, after all, marks the 20th
anniversary of the landmark Beijing Declaration and Platform
for Action on gender equality and the launch of new
sustainable development goals, which will include ambitious
new targets aimed at empowering women and girls.And what
does my perfect future world—my “dream snapshot”—look like?
I have in fact written three vision statements over the
years. The first appeared in the book, Development, Crises,
and Alternative Visions: Third World Women’s Perspectives in
1985; the second in the Millennium Project book, Taking
Action, in 2005; and the third in the USAID Gender Equality
Strategy. In Taking Action, I projected a world in
which “women and men share equally in the enjoyment of basic
capabilities, economic assets, voice, and freedom from fear
and violence. They share the care of children, the elderly,
and the sick; the responsibility for paid employment; and
the joys of leisure. In this world the resources
now used for war and destruction are invested in human
development and well-being, institutions, and
decision-making processes are open and democratic, and all
human beings treat each other with respect and dignity.”It’s
a world in which the World Bank Group has achieved its
over-arching goals of eliminating extreme poverty and
boosting shared prosperity.Concrete ProgressDuring that
frenetic week at CSW discussions and panels in New York, I
saw ample evidence of concrete strides in the right
direction.Let’s go back to energy. Clean cooking and solar
power were on the agenda 25 years ago but acquired little
traction for a variety of reasons, notably those related to
undeveloped technology, cost, and products unsuited to
women’s needs—so even when they were available freely, women
didn’t use them. That has all changed.The technology has
improved, we have financing models, we have engaged women in
the development and marketing of various products, and
demand is growing in light of environmental, health and
other issues. Multiple actors across sectors are
collaborating to make it happen, to take innovations to
scale.The commitment on gender equality and energy issues
around the room at the access to energy panel was
impressive. A clean cookstoves display stood in back,
showing how entrepreneurs are committed to improving the
lives of women, who do the lion’s share of cooking.We heard
about the Sustainable Energy for All initiative and its
commitment to gender equality and health. As the Bank goes
forward mobilizing US $60 million for the Efficient Clean
Cooking and Heating Partnership with the Global Alliance for
Clean Cookstoves, we know we cannot do this alone. We need
to learn from and work with others.The moderator asked how
we get buy-in from colleagues to incorporate gender equality
in their energy work.On the Bank side, it’s clear: We need
data and evidence showing why this is a smart investment.
And the data are clear. We cannot address climate change,
end poverty, or boost inclusive growth unless we close key
gaps between women and men broadly, including in access to
energy.This might translate in various ways. It
might mean ensuring all households—including those that are
poor—are affordably connected to the grid, employing women
in the energy sector, or incorporating women’s concerns when
designing and building energy infrastructure. It
could mean supporting female entrepreneurs so they can
compete on an equal footing. It could mean anticipating and
proactively addressing a possible spike in gender-based
violence when a new mining project gets under
way. Explaining the Bank Group’s work on gender and
energy allowed me to reflect on and appreciate that we are
not starting from scratch. My colleague Anita George, senior
director of the Bank’s new Energy & Extractive
Industries Global Practice, convened two town halls March 10
covering all regions to discuss how access to electricity
can have profound impacts on women’s lives.Her team’s ESMAP
Gender & Energy and Gender in Extractives
programs—along with regional programs in Africa and East
Asia—focus on expanding the evidence base, working with
operational teams and projects, and building capacity.And
they’re delivering results: In Senegal, they’re boosting the
incomes of rural women who are now charcoal producers and
entrepreneurs in the fuel supply chain. In Laos, targeted
financing is helping households headed by women connect to
the rural electric grid. We’ve sent astronauts to
the moon and achieved countless medical and technological
breakthroughs in the last century that were once thought
wholly impossible. Now it’s your turn: Imagine the
world as you’d like to see it in 2030. Tell us about it,
along with your ideas about how improving women and men’s
access to clean energy can help us get there. Show Less -

Sustainable energy access is vital to the
eradication of poverty. I believe that by
providing access to affordable energy, it triggers the
domino effect of br... Show More +inging light, clean water, tools of
communication and learning, improving health, and allowing
for the establishment and growth of small businesses.
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim stated when
joining the Sustainable Energy for All initiative in 2012,
“Ending poverty and ensuring sustainability are the defining
challenges of our time. Energy is central to both of
them.”Today, about 75% of Kenya's population of
approximately 41 million people reside in off-grid rural
areas. The government is implementing an ambitious
development blueprint, Vision 2030, which aims to transform
Kenya into a middle-income economy by 2030. Its
success hinges on the country’s ability to provide
affordable and reliable electricity to roughly 40 million
Kenyans in 15 years (based on a projected annual population
growth of 2%). So, what is the most effective way
to electrify rural Kenya?According to a 2012 article in The
Economist, “which plastic gadget, fitting neatly into one
hand, can most quickly improve the lives of the world’s
poorest people… over the next decade it will be the
solar-powered lamp.” I too advocate for the
increased use of solar lighting products. This
will allow the money spent on kerosene to be redirected
towards an eventual full electricity connection.
Kenya has a positive reputation in the ease with
which it adapts to new technology. Hence, we can
expect a fast uptake of these solar products once introduced
into the market. The World Bank is enabling this
cause through its “Lighting Africa” initiative.If this
solution is scaled up, we can create positive change that
will improve the lives of millions of people. The support of
banks, microfinance institutions and M-PESA, our
mobile money platform, lends credence to the viability of
this solution. This is realized through offering customized
hire-purchase packages that recognize that more than 50% of
the populace survives on less than $1 a day. I am
also of the opinion that the provision of power isn’t, and
shouldn’t be, a monopolized venture. It is a
public service. I propose increased investment in
small-scale, renewable, off-grid power systems – also known
as micro-grids – to complement the government’s efforts to
boost supply mainly through geothermal sources.
The “Beyond the Grid” initiative is supporting
this model in Africa by providing capital to investors.In
return, the Kenya government must provide the regulatory
framework for micro-grids to thrive by providing incentives
like attractive feed-in-tariffs and zero-rating renewable
technology imports. The World Bank can support
this by offering technical expertise and developing
recommendations for financial models to sustain this kind of
investment. This solution would make the biggest
difference by supporting enterprises in rural areas.I’ll
conclude with the words of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon:
“Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty,
advancing economic growth – these are one and the
same fight.”It’s time for Kenya to embrace this timeless
universal message of change in order to eradicate poverty:
Let’s give power to the people. Show Less -

This blog post was originally published on
Ideas Lab. Breakthroughs in energy technology are happening
all over the world, improving access to power for people and
... Show More +making a real difference in their quality of life. While
technological innovation tends to come predominantly from
developed economies, we see incredible entrepreneurialism in
developing countries when it comes to adopting and adapting
new technology for local markets and needs. The challenge
for poorer countries is getting timely access to the best
and cleanest technologies.When I was approached by Ideas Lab
to share my energy innovation predictions, I decided to
crowdsource ideas from my team in the World Bank’s Energy
Global Practice. These are people in regular — almost daily
— contact with the government and private sector in the
world’s key emerging markets and low-income countries.Their
workdays are occupied by the challenge of improving energy
services for millions of people in developing countries
while also reaching the 1.2 billion people in the world
still waiting for any electricity connection. And the
challenge is to do this in ways that are sustainable for
economies, people and the environment.1. In terms of
technology breakthroughs, at the top of everyone’s list:
energy storage.The expectation is that in less than five
years, we will see a revolution in storage technology that
will change the way the electricity business is done. If we
can overcome the challenge of effectively storing variable
renewable energy — such as solar and wind, which are not
constant all day every day — and do so in a way that
competes on cost with fossil fuel generation, we are talking
major game-changer.We are already seeing the development of
longer-lasting liquid metals, which can make grid-scale
batteries a reality (even comparable to the capabilities of
pump storage). We’re also seeing many promising projects
focused on converting surplus electricity (from wind, for
example) to hydrogen, which can be stored and fed into
natural gas grids for subsequent power or heat generation.
Energy utilities can learn a lot from sectors like mobile
telephony and car manufacturers, which are really leading
the energy storage game.2. Next on my team’s list: smart
grids.Just as mobile phones have dramatically changed in
capacity and performance over the years, today’s power grids
won’t be able to support the energy goals of the future. The
integration of large amounts of variable renewable energy
and distributed generation, improvements in the reliability
of service, and aspirations for higher energy efficiency
change the dynamics of the conventional power grid. The
future calls for grids that are “smarter” and able to react
faster.For many of the countries the World Bank works
with, upgrading and modernizing grids is a
major challenge. Across the board, new technologies are
increasing grid reliability and improving performance
measurement through data analytics — from smart sensors to
hardware and software. Innovations in how smart-grid
information and communications technologies (ICT) are
revolutionizing the way consumers react to information and
markets, and will have a profound effect on how systems
operate and resources are deployed. In this new environment,
the value of variable renewable energy is maximized. Solar
and wind are permanent parts of the energy mix.3. For
developing countries seeking to connect the unconnected, we
see a lot of innovation ahead in the area of
mini-grids.Mini-grids, based on renewable or hybrid systems,
will play a critical role in meeting the
UN-led Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL)
goal of universal energy access by 2030. While mini-grids
have been around for a while, especially in Asia, they are
now proliferating all over the world and becoming an
important factor in the expansion of energy services in
areas of low access, like Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of
South Asia. While this expansion has been held back by gaps
in policies and regulations, a lack of long-term financing
and a lack of capacity or interest among power producers,
the barriers are rapidly breaking down with new business
models emerging. As renewable energy costs —
particularly for solar panels — continue to come down,
independent power producers will find innovative ways to
bring electricity services to customers who’d otherwise be
waiting years for grid connections. National utilities will
have to quickly adapt in this new environment or find
themselves outplayed by independent operators.​Our concern
at the World Bank is to make sure that new energy
technologies are rapidly transferred to where they are most
needed. To do this, it’s critical to address all sorts of
barriers to technology transfer and domestic innovation. For
example, many low- and lower-middle-income countries apply
import tariffs to renewable energy technologies like PV
panels, wind turbines and biodiesel, making them more
expensive before they even leave the port. Knowledge and the
capacity to absorb new and sophisticated technology is
another issue — the lack of enrollment in tertiary
engineering and construction courses can be a major barrier.
And having a strong legal, regulatory, planning and
governance environment that encourages investment in new
technologies is also key. The good news is that
trade between developing countries in renewable energy is
expanding. The future is looking brighter and cleaner, but
we have a lot of work to do to ensure all the breakthroughs
benefit everyone, everywhere. Show Less -

Since 2011 I have been doing a roundup of
the 200 most read World Bank blog posts of the year, and
comparing World Bank blogs in terms of their shares of
top-200 bl... Show More +og posts. What did blogging at the World
Bank in 2014 look like? Table 1 shows
the Bank’s blogs in terms of their top-200
blog posts in each of the last four years. (As before, I
excluded pages that didn’t look like posts – blog home
pages, blogger profiles, thematic pages, and so on. I may
have inadvertently dropped some posts in which case my
apologies to the blogger.) Table 1: Number of blog
posts among the
top-200 2014201320122011Development
Impact23172016Future Development23800Open Data1717100Voices
- Perspectives on Development1519111Africa Can End
Poverty14293940People, Spaces,
Deliberation1210911EduTech11131817Let's Talk
Development11181418East Asia & Pacific on the
rise991619Education for Global
Development9534Youthink81010Private Sector
Development6852Development in a Changing Climate51313End
Poverty in South Asia5579The Trade Post4300Arab Voices and
Views3010Information and Communications for
Development3200Nasikiliza3624Transport for
Development3211Development Marketplace2242Governance for
Development21412Growth & Crisis2276Latin
America2231Sustainable Cities2160Sustainable Energy for
All2000All About Finance1546Investing in Health1100People
Move1113The Water Blog1310Political Risk and Emerging
Markets0020Prospects for Development0065Joint #1 in 2014
were Development Impact, always a strong performer,
and Future Development, a blog that started only in
2013. Open Data, another relatively young strong
performer, moved up from 4th to 3rd
position. Voices - Perspectives on
Development had another good year. Africa
Can End Poverty, the top dog in 2011, 2012 and 2013, fell to
5th position in 2014, but still got a very respectable 14
top-200 posts, while Let’s Talk
Development slipped from #3 to #7. Climbers in 2014
included Development in a Changing Climate, which
up until 2014 had been sliding precipitously,
and Arab Voices and Views, which notched up three
top-200 posts in 2014. Table 2 lists the top-100
blog posts of 2014. Click here for the
top-200. Interestingly, one third of 2014’s top-100 posts
were also in 2013’s top-100. The post “Can rapid population
growth be good for economic development?” was #1 in 2011,
2012 and 2013, while the post “La falta de empleo es ahora
un problema mundial” was #4 in 2013 and #3 in 2014. In fact,
seven of the 10 most read posts in 2014 were in among the 10
most read posts in 2013 as well. The top newcomer posts in
the top 10 are “Career opportunities for young Africans at
the World Bank”, “Are You Kidding Me? Surprises on my Return
Visit to Gujarat After Six Years”, and “Bank Sampah di
Indonesia: Menabung, Mengubah
Perilaku”. Table 2: Top-100 World Bank
blog posts 2014* RankBlogPostViews1NasikilizaCareer
opportunities for young Africans at the World
Bank48,6382Africa Can End PovertyCan rapid population growth
be good for economic development?23,0533Voices -
Perspectives on DevelopmentLa falta de empleo es ahora un
problema mundial21,7544End Poverty in South AsiaAre You
Kidding Me? Surprises on my Return Visit to Gujarat After
Six Years15,0415East Asia & Pacific on the riseBank
Sampah di Indonesia: Menabung, Mengubah
Perilaku10,4896Africa Can End PovertyThe Impact of the
Financial Crisis on South Africa9,6587YouthinkNo cell phones
in school?9,5818YouthinkSocial Media and Social Change: How
Young People are Tapping into Technology9,3349Let's
Talk DevelopmentYouth Bulge: A Demographic Dividend or a
Demographic Bomb in Developing Countries?8,68510People,
Spaces, DeliberationBonding vs. Bridging8,44511Information
and Communications for DevelopmentTech hubs across Africa:
Which will be the legacy-makers?7,94012Open
DataInternational tourism data: top destinations, number of
arrivals, and more7,66113Future DevelopmentSix Strategies to
Fight Corruption6,69914EduTechVideogames and
Learning6,31915EduTechTen trends in technology use in
education in developing countries that you may not have
heard about6,29216Africa Can End PovertyWhat will it take to
end poverty in Africa?5,64617EduTechBig educational laptop
and tablet projects - Ten countries to learn
from5,24018YouthinkHow soccer can save the world5,23219Open
DataWhich country has the highest proportion of women in
parliament?5,13020Sustainable CitiesImproving Slums: Stories
from Sao Paulo4,94621EduTechTen things about computer use in
schools that you don't want to hear (but I'll say
them anyway)4,92922Education for Global DevelopmentWhat is
the role of universities in global development?4,91123East
Asia & Pacific on the riseState-owned enterprises in
China: How big are they?4,83124The Water blog4 Ways Water
Shortages Are Harming Energy Production4,82425Future
DevelopmentThere is No Middle Income Trap4,82226Africa Can
End PovertyAfrican Successes - Listing the success
stories4,81427Voices - Perspectives on DevelopmentDiez
tendencias sobre el uso de la tecnología en la educación en
los países en desarrollo4,76328Development MarketplaceSolar
Bottle Lights: Transforming Plastic Bottle Waste to Light
Bulbs4,72229YouthinkIf You Could Help End Extreme Poverty,
Would You? We Can. Let's Take It On.4,60930YouthinkFive
Reasons Why Youth Should Choose Agriculture4,52531Private
Sector DevelopmentWhy is China ahead of India? A fascinating
analysis by Amartya Sen4,51232Open DataFrom open data to
development impact – the crucial role of the private
sector4,48733EduTech10 Global Trends in ICT and
Education4,43634Development ImpactDo you agree or disagree?
How to ask the question4,29435Transport for DevelopmentAir
Traffic Surveillance. How can a Boeing 777 vanish without a
trace?4,12336Education for Global DevelopmentTeaching 21st
Century Skills to Ready Students for the World of
Work4,03437Development ImpactThe often (unspoken)
assumptions behind the difference-in-difference estimator in
practice4,03238Future DevelopmentChinese Lessons:
Singapore’s Epic Regression to the Mean4,02839Arab Voices
and Viewsتذليل العقبات أمام انتشار الإنترنت السريع في العالم
العربي4,02740People, Spaces, DeliberationWhat Role Does
Civil Society Play in Economic Development?4,00341Let's
Talk DevelopmentGlobal Economic Outlook in One Thousand
Words3,87442Open DataInternational Debt Statistics: three
changes for 20143,76243Development ImpactDo the Poor Waste
Transfers on Booze and Cigarettes? No3,67244Future
DevelopmentThe Chief Minister Posed Questions We Couldn’t
Answer3,58945Development in a Changing ClimateDeforestation:
Disastrous consequences for the climate and for food
security3,56646Future DevelopmentWhat Does Piketty’s Capital
Mean for Developing Countries?3,52647Education for Global
DevelopmentFive Steps to Improve Girls’ Education and Job
Prospects3,51148Let's Talk DevelopmentPlaying with and
Understanding Purchasing Power Parities3,49649Africa Can End
PovertyPoor but happy?3,45650Education for Global
DevelopmentAre Great Teachers Born or Made?3,34951People,
Spaces, DeliberationAnecdotes and Simple Observations are
Dangerous; Words and Narratives are Not.3,18252Let's
Talk DevelopmentJarring Numbers on Financial Inclusion Point
to Opportunities for Digitizing Payments3,11453Development
ImpactWhat are the under-researched topics in development
according to young faculty?3,11254EduTechEvaluating the Khan
Academy3,10755Latin AmericaColombia: soluciones innovadoras
para fortalecer el desarrollo3,10656Africa Can End
PovertyAfrica and the Millennium Development
Goals3,09357EduTechSchool computer labs: A bad
idea?3,06658Education for Global DevelopmentInternational
Day of the Girl: 10 Things to Know & Useful
Resources on Girls' Education3,05559Future
DevelopmentThe End of the Population Pyramid2,98960Voices -
Perspectives on DevelopmentYears of Living Dangerously,
Years of Opportunity2,96161Development in a Changing
ClimateWhy Investors Support a Price on
Carbon2,94762Information and Communications for
DevelopmentCloud computing for government - The future is
cloudy and that is good news2,94463Development
ImpactGenerating Regression and Summary Statistics Tables in
Stata: A checklist and code2,93364East Asia &
Pacific on the riseMembangkitkan Generasi Emas Indonesia:
Memperluas Wajib Belajar dari 9 Menjadi 12
Tahun2,91565Future DevelopmentWhy should Governments Spend
on Sanitation?2,90066Development in a Changing
ClimateBritish Columbia’s Carbon Tax Shift: An Environmental
and Economic Success2,89667NasikilizaPowering up Africa’s
Renewable Energy Revolution2,89268Growth &
CrisisGender Equality Pays Off in Brazil2,88669Africa Can
End PovertyWhy do Kenyans want to live in
cities?2,88470Let's Talk DevelopmentA development
e-story: Estonia2,87671Development ImpactWhen bad people do
good surveys2,84372YouthinkThe Secret Advantages of Being
Young2,83873Open DataDoes Your Country Export What It
Should?2,83174Open DataSpicing up research on sub-national
development through open data: Indonesia Data for Policy and
Eco2,82575Latin AmericaMás allá del crecimiento: ¿es bueno
para el bienestar de la población invertir en
infraestructura?2,78476Future DevelopmentAusterity vs.
Fiscal Stimulus: A False Dilemma?2,77077Sustainable Energy
for AllBuilding Consensus for a Green Growth Pathway in
Vietnam2,76978Private Sector DevelopmentThe Jeffrey Sachs
& William Easterly saga2,75179Development ImpactA
pre-analysis plan checklist2,74480Development ImpactHard
measurement of Soft Skills2,74181EduTechMore about MOOCs and
developing countries2,70882Open DataAccessing the World Bank
Data APIs in Python, R, Ruby & Stata2,69283Future
DevelopmentFuture Development Forecasts 20142,67284Open
DataNo open data? No problem. 5 ways entrepreneurs are
fueling open data in the developing world2,66785Future
DevelopmentWhy is Corruption Today Less of a Taboo than a
Quarter Century Ago?2,63386Voices - Perspectives on
DevelopmentZimbabwe: How Can the Diaspora Contribute to
Development?2,63287Voices - Perspectives on DevelopmentSi
tienes 22 años: Viaja y ve cómo vive la gente2,62088Voices -
Perspectives on DevelopmentCinco consejos para iniciar un
movimiento social2,60789Future DevelopmentIt’s not the How;
It’s the Why2,60690Education for Global DevelopmentThe Six
A’s of Quality Education2,57791Growth & CrisisBrazil
Announces Phase Two of the Growth Acceleration
Program2,55892End Poverty in South AsiaCan political
stability hurt economic growth?2,54093Open DataWhere in the
world are young people out of work?2,53494Let's Talk
DevelopmentFood Security and Poverty—a precarious
balance2,52895Development in a Changing ClimateGreen Bonds
Market Tops $20 Billion, Expands to New Issuers, Currencies
& Structures2,49496East Asia & Pacific on
the riseHow Open Data can Make Good Governance Last in the
Philippines2,48797Private Sector DevelopmentA Universal
Definition of Small Enterprise: A Procrustean bed for
SMEs?2,48798People, Spaces, Deliberation#2 from 2013:
Challenges for India’s Livelihood Youth Skill Development in
Rural Areas2,48599Africa Can End PovertyWhat caused the HIV
epidemic in Africa?2,456100All About FinanceExecutive Pay
and the Financial Crisis2,455* The period covered is January
1, 2014 – December 31, 2014. Data on views were obtained
from Omniture, which apparently gives more precise – and
typically lower – page view figures than the Bank’s blogger platform. Show Less -

Many of us drive cars on a regular basis,
particularly in developed countries, but perhaps rarely
think about how we could reduce the impact of our driving on
the e... Show More +nvironment. In other words, what are some of
the policies and specific actions that could facilitate
greater improvements in energy efficiency in the vehicles
sector?Questions like these were at the center of
discussions at the Fuel Economy Accelerator Symposium held
in Paris last week. The event, organized by the Global Fuel
Economy Initiative (GFEI), was hosted by the French Ministry
of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy. I
represented the World Bank at this event, which took place
on the heels of the UN Secretary General’s upcoming Climate
Conference in New York, scheduled for late September. As a
result, the topic of the fuel economy and energy efficiency
is especially timely and relevant.Doubling the global rate
of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030 is one of the
three major objectives of Sustainable Energy for All
(SE4ALL), an initiative led by the UN Secretary-General and
the President of the World Bank Group. The other two goals
by 2030 are to provide universal access to electricity and
modern cooking solutions, and to double the share of
renewable energy in the global energy mix. The
Global Fuel Economy Initiative is one of five energy
efficiency projects within the Global Energy Efficiency
Accelerator Platform, which was established to help drive
action and commitments by leaders at the national and
sectorial levels. The Accelerator Platform will provide
governments with policy options and technical support that
leverages best-in-class toolkits, databases and
subject-matter experts. And Sustainable Energy for All will
promote, through its network of public and private financial
institutions and donors, funding to support policy
development and project implementation.The GFEI event in
Paris made it clear that the impact of massive increases in
vehicle numbers and energy demand around the world is not
sustainable. Specifically, it is unsustainable in terms of
CO2 emissions and overall health impact on the world’s
populations; unsustainable in terms of energy supply costs
as resources become increasingly scarce; and unsustainable
in terms of its impact on overall climate change.To get a
concrete picture of the situation, consider this fact: the
global fleet of light vehicles (cars and vans) is due to
triple by 2050, with more than 80 percent of new vehicles in
emerging economies and less developed countries.The good
news is that the fuel economy in vehicles could be improved
right away. It could be doubled in new vehicles by 2030 and
in all vehicles by 2050 – using cost-effective fuel economy
technologies such as stop-start and smaller, more efficient
engines, which are already in many cars today.This
represents a transformative change in the cars we are
driving today, and could mean savings of $2 trillion in
un-used fuel by 2030 alone. These are resources that are
desperately needed elsewhere; for schools and hospitals, or
to support new technologies such as electric
vehicles. Furthermore, billions of barrels of oil
could be saved as a result of increased efficiency, along
with up to 1 gigatonne of CO2 per year from 2030, and up to
2 gigatonnes from 2050.The Global Fuel Economy Initiative --
a partnership of various organizations including the
International Energy Agency, the United Nations Environment
Programme, the International Transport Forum (ITF), the FIA
Foundation and others -- is working to secure the maximum
deployment of existing fuel economy technologies in vehicles
across the world. These are important efforts that need to
be scaled up through more in-country policy support,
research and advocacy.UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is
challenging heads of state and government along with
business, civil society and local leaders attending the
Climate Summit in New York to be bold, innovate and scale up
action to close the emissions gap. Working on
accelerating energy efficiency by using less fuel is no
doubt an important focus area to achieve cleaner transport
around the world.Today, the push to curtail emissions from
the transport sector is actually a three-legged
stool. More energy efficient combustion engines
are one leg, while development of electric vehicles is
another. But the third and most critical leg to ensure a
long-term sustainable decrease in emissions is a systemic
modal shift away from individual car use toward more
collective modes of transport, including non-motorized modes
wherever possible.The Global Fuel Economy Initiative has
emphasized change in engine technologies for reducing fuel
demand and emissions in transport. This is particularly
important for countries with a mature infrastructure system
that is geared towards individual motorized transport.
It is still unclear, however, whether regulatory
policies are the least-cost policies to reduce fossil fuel
dependency and emissions.On the other hand, countries whose
infrastructure is yet to develop might be able to reduce
fossil fuel dependency in a less-costly way by aiming for
different modal patterns of mobility than in Organization
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries,
as well as by emphasizing low-emission modes of transport
and avoiding the lock-in that more advanced economies have
to live with.It is clear that different policy approaches
may be appropriate for countries at different levels of
their transport infrastructure development. In the
meantime, what are your thoughts about the role car-sharing
and electric bikes could play in both developed and
developing economies?Keep moving! Show Less -

Whether you'll be attending the
upcoming World Water Week in person or following
online, there's a lot to look forward to this year.
This year's theme focuses ... Show More +on Energy and Water and along
with Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) and the
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), The
World Bank Group is excited to join as a collaborating
partner.The energy and water nexus is critical to the
Bank's work towards ending extreme poverty and boosting
shared prosperity for the poorest 40% by 2030. Significant
amounts of water are needed in almost all energy generation
processes. At the same time, the water sector needs energy
to extract, treat and transport water. Fundamentally, people
need water, energy, and food to survive. Yet, some 748
million people lack access to safe drinking water, 2.5
billion do not have access to improved sanitation, and 1.3
billion people lack access to electricity.We encourage you
to join us at sessions and other major activities, starting
with the Opening Plenary session as Junaid Ahmad, the Senior
Director for Water, and Anita George, the Senior Director
for Energy, deliver a joint keynote
address. For those of you not joining in Stockholm,
follow us online: worldbank.org/worldwaterweekOn Twitter:
@WorldBankWater and hashtag #wwweekOr here, via The Water
Blog​For those of you who will be in Stockholm, please drop
by the World Bank Group booth: B05:10 (by the coffee in the
Exhibition Hall) Below is a list of World Bank
Group (co)-convened sessions (Note: Schedule listed is
in Central European Time)​Producing Electricity
with Less Water – New Perspectives for Renewables in a Water
- Constrained World (9/01, 14:00- 17:30, K16/17)Innovations
in Sustainability for Water and Sanitation Services (9/01,
17:45-18:45, T2)Beyond Asset Management – Sector Analysis
and Partnerships for Sustainable Service Delivery in WASH
(9/02, 9:00 -12:35, T6)The Water-Energy Nexus in the Context
of Green Growth (9/02, 2:00 - 17:30, T4)Entwined
Predicaments: Limits Facing Water and Energy (9/02, 9:00 –
17:30, K16/17)IBNET Blue Book Launch session (Details to
follow) (9/02,14:00-16:00, M17)Innovations in
Financing Access to Water and Energy for the Poor Using
Output-Based Aid (OBA) (9/03, 9:00– 12:30, K22/23)From
Faecal Sludge to Fuel: Safe Sanitation with Business
Opportunities (9/03, 14:00 – 5:30, K22/23)Bridging Water
& Energy Service Delivery with Mobiles and
Information Technology (9/03, 14:00 – 17:30, K21)Valuation,
Economics and Finance (9/04, 9:00 – 12:30 and 14:00 - 17:30,
K16/17)Climate-Informed Decision Support Tools for
Sustainable Water Management (New eBook to be
launched: Beyond Downscaling – A Bottom up Approach
to Climate Change Adaptation for Water Resources Management)
(9/04, 9:00– 12:30, T5)Innovations for More Food with Less
Water and Less Energy (9/04, 14:00 – 17:30, T5)For more
details about these sessions, click here. The full program
is available here.Related links:Click to see the rest of the
infographic.​Feature Story: World Water Week Seeks
Solutions to Water and Energy ChallengesEvent: World Bank
Group at World Water WeekInfographic: Why Does Energy Need
Water?​Thirsty Energy Show Less -

Also available in: EspañolClimate change
presents serious and growing risks to the global economic
system, with a number of recent studies showing the impact
that c... Show More +limate change is already having on livelihoods and
business models. For example, extreme weather, which can be
exacerbated by climate change, caused economic losses of
US$2.6 trillion from 1980 to 2012.Addressing these risks is
an economic and societal imperative. At the same time, it
presents opportunities. Climate-smart investments
in efficient, clean infrastructure, clean energy, resilient
agriculture, and water resources offer stable, attractive
returns for investors and communities when the conditions
are right.This week, I was in Lima at the Peruvian
government’s Climate Finance Week and found many reasons to
be optimistic that we can turn the climate challenge into an
economic opportunity. This blog post shares some
key themes that I took away from the event.1) Finance
ministries are taking ownership of the climate agendaLima
Climate Finance Week began with a high-level panel featuring
the ministers of environment and finance. Peruvian Finance
Minister Luis Miguel Castilla emphasized the false dilemma
between economy and environment, saying that Peru wants to
show that climate change risks and opportunities can be
incorporated into the national budget and planning process.
The Peruvian Ministry of Economy and Finance joins
counterparts in Colombia, Mexico, Korea, Morocco, Denmark,
New York State, and British Columbia in using its power to
set budgets, create climate-friendly fiscal policies such as
removing fossil fuel subsidies and pricing carbon, and
target public finances to mobilize and shift private
investment to low-carbon
infrastructure. As one example,
Colombia’s National Planning Department presented an
impressive overview of its efforts to create a comprehensive
national framework that includes an assessment of the
potential impacts that climate change might present to its
development, combined with a plan for new institutions,
policies, and budgets for public finance targeted at a mix
of climate investment opportunities in clean energy,
resilience, and efficient infrastructure. 2) We
need to address the two sides of the climate finance
coinAnother key theme was the recognition that climate
finance is not just about the supply of money through new,
innovative funds and mechanisms (see, for example, IFC Asset
Management Corporation’s Catalyst Fund or the Green Climate
Fund). The other side of the coin is equally
important: governments and banks must work to
create demand for climate finance—a pipeline of bankable
projects. Bank of America’s recent work with the
UN Sustainable Energy for All finance committee concluded
that the largest constraint on placing climate finance in
emerging markets is the supply of high-quality deal
flow. This focus on developing a strong project
pipeline was reflected by representatives from the Green
Climate Fund, which has launched a work program focused on
ensuring country “readiness” to receive climate finance.
This initiative will work with developing
countries to enhance learning on good practice in developing
national policies and programs that prepare them to receive
Green Climate Fund monies and other donor
support. Other efforts are underway. For
example, several donors have created the Global Innovation
Lab for Climate Finance, which is working with banks, public
finance agencies, and other stakeholders to develop a suite
of innovative new climate finance tools that can help
address some of the most persistent barriers to climate
finance. One tool that the Lab is pursuing is a
Climate Development and Finance Facility. This
facility—initially supported by the Dutch development bank
FMO and other stakeholders—combines project development
support for the early stages of project development with
public finance for projects that emerge from the project
pipeline. The facility recognizes that commercial banks and
institutional investors do not have the interest or
resources to speculate in early-stage project scoping, and
it fills a key gap by creating demand for climate
finance. 3) Public finance plays a
critical role in catalyzing private investment The third
important take-away from the event was that public
finance—including domestic budgets and banks as well as
international sources like multilateral development banks
and the proposed Green Climate Fund—plays an essential role
in establishing new markets for climate-friendly
investment. As the Green Climate Fund
shapes its path forward, the Climate Investment Funds offer
important lessons on the strategic use of public
finance. One tool that CIFs have used successfully
is “Programmatic Loans” that tie funding to the
implementation of key policies designed to unlock private
investment. The Inter-American Development Bank
pointed out good examples in Mexico and Chile where public
finance was combined with technical assistance that
strengthened their enabling environment and resulted in
successful renewable energy investments in these
countries. Banks and private sector developers also
weighed in on the importance of public finance. Chile’s
Banco BICE explained the rapid expansion of renewable energy
investment in the country, stressing the critical role that
the national government’s concessional loans and supportive
policies played, combined with investments by
international development finance institutions like the IFC.
Before these public finance actors entered the market and
demonstrated that renewable energy investments provided
low-risk, positive returns, few banks were interested in
renewable energy as an investment opportunity. Today, BICE
is one of several domestic banks investing in the Chilean
renewable energy sector, with US$500 million
committed. Peruvian bank BCP echoed this
sentiment, explaining that public finance and policy is
helping the bank to re-cast green investment as a growth
opportunity. Brazilian national bank BNDES provided
a powerful example in how to combine public finance with
supportive policies to create a sizeable domestic wind
energy market. In 2001, the government identified a large
potential for wind energy in the country, and BNDES worked
with the energy ministry to design a set of targeted
policies, including a feed-in tariff, BNDES support for
domestic turbine production, and reverse auctions for wind
projects. Today, wind energy is more cost-effective than
fossil energy, and the country expects to install 13
gigawatts of capacity by 2018, enough to power about 13
million homes. Another way that public finance is
jump-starting climate finance is via the rapidly growing
global market for green bonds. The market passed US$20
billion last month is rapidly gaining issuers and investors
in green bonds. Last week, IFC released the
world’s first green bond denominated in Peruvian soles,
providing a further boost to Peru’s climate
finance. These lessons from
the front lines of climate finance show that the creation of
attractive policy environments, strategic use of public
finance, and growing awareness and appetite of private banks
and investors are helping to turn the climate challenge into
an investment opportunity. Lima Climate Finance Week set the
scene for a series of climate finance meetings happening
this fall; including the UN Secretary-General’s Climate
Summit on 23 September, the World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings
in October, and the UN Climate Talks that Peru is hosting in
November and December. Photo: John
Hogg/World Bank Show Less -

Right now, as you read this, wherever you
are, we are in uncharted territory. Our global population of
7.1 billion is headed for more than 9 billion by 2050. With
o... Show More +ur growing numbers and aspirations for shared prosperity
comes a growing demand for energy to power homes,
businesses, industry and transport. Our continuing reliance
on fossil fuels is generating pollution and a dangerously
high amount of greenhouse gas emissions – this past summer,
the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere passed levels not
seen in 3 million years.If you were in Beijing last week,
you felt the impact in your lungs: Just 16 days into the new
year, the city woke up to its first “airpocalypse” of 2014,
the latest in a series of dangerously high smog days.
Beijing’s mayor announced plans the same day to cut coal use
by 2.6 million tons and ban heavily polluting
vehicles.That was an important local step, and we are seeing
forward-thinking cities and national governments make
similar moves as they develop the architecture for a
cleaner, low-carbon future.This week at the World Future
Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi and then at Davos, I am talking
with government and private sector leaders from around the
world about the global energy and climate challenge, what it
means for their people and future national prosperity, and
how we can all efficiently, economically, and at a global
scale clean up the energy supply to maintain a livable
world. We need to muster political will to make policy and
investment moves now.The reality is that demand for energy
is on a path to double by 2050. Without changes to our
energy supply and how we use it, the result will be higher
greenhouse gas emissions that could lead to a 2°C
temperature increase in the next 20 to 30 years, with
spiraling effects including more intense storms, droughts,
and damage to food and water security. This will also affect
energy system security.We need pragmatic solutions that are
fact-based, sensible, and effective to reverse the path that
has taken us into dangerous territory. That means addressing
a root cause of climate change – energy based on high-carbon
fossil fuels – and shifting to a low-carbon energy path.
It’s not easy, and it will mean leaning on transition fuels
like natural gas and capturing, storing and using carbon, on
our way to a clean economy, but it is beginning to happen
around us. How do we take emerging stories of success and
bold leadership from anecdote to everyone's story?The
Sustainable Energy for All initiative, led by UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank Group President
Jim Kim, is leading the international charge with three
goals: achieve universal access to modern energy, double the
share of renewable energy, and double the rate of
improvement in energy efficiency by 2030.To make those
happen and build a sustainable, clean-energy future, it’s
important to get the policies right now.First, put a price
on carbon. A predictable, robust price on carbon gives
companies an incentive to invest in low-carbon energy
sources and technology and reduces demand for fossil fuels.
That, along with fiscal and other policies to support energy
efficiency and renewable energy, can help bring low-carbon
technologies to scale, which lowers their cost as we have
seen with solar. Thirty-six countries have or are planning
to launch carbon markets in coming years; China launched
five pilots for emissions trading in four cities and one
province last year and has two more planned with an
aggressive target for a national system. China may be the
world’s largest energy consumer today, but it’s also a
leader in energy savings, and it’s taking action.A carbon
price provides certainty and levels the playing field.
Corporate leaders are increasingly recognizing the risks
that climate change poses to their sectors, business models,
supply chains, and resources. Several are already using
their own shadow prices on carbon for planning, according to
CDP’s latest review.Second, create a climate that attracts
investment in clean energy and resilient infrastructure.
That starts with mandates, policies, incentives, and
building codes that require greater energy efficiency and
use of clean energy. Shifting from brown economies to green
is a hard slog, but it also carries immediate payoffs in
reduced energy waste and increased livability, as the
energy-intense economies of Eastern Europe are
discovering.In our study on how to achieve the Sustainable
Energy for All objectives by 2030, we estimate that it will
take at least $800 billion more a year, above what is
currently invested in access, efficiency, and renewable
energy, to reach those goals. The public can’t carry this
alone – the UN estimates that about 80 percent of all
financing need to deal with climate change will have to come
from private sources.The money is there, though investors
mention a few lingering barriers: lack of understanding of
the opportunities, limited capacity to appraise risks and
limited appetite for risk, lack of creditworthy energy
utilities, and limited leveraging of concessional resources.
How to bridge that gap is one issue being discussed this
week.Another policy to get right: phase out fossil fuel
subsidies. The world spent $1.9 trillion subsidizing fossil
fuels in 2011, about 8 percent of total government revenues,
according to the IMF. Taxpayers end up footing the bill for
companies that are emitting and polluting. It’s a strain on
public funds. It discourages energy efficiency. And it’s
regressive – on average, the richest 20 percent of
households in low-and middle-income countries capture six
times more benefit from subsidies than the poorest. Shifting
from taxing what we earn to what we burn is the topic in
more and more capitals around the world.Water is one very
tangible reason for driving energy efficiency. Energy
generation uses water; pumping and filtering water and
getting it to home faucets and farm fields requires energy;
and water is limited. We’re launching a new global
initiative this week called Thirsty Energy to help countries
assess their water-energy challenges and work across
ministries to manage the risks and develop solutions.As you
can see we have a lot of work to do, all of us, but there
are opportunities in every economy, high income or low,
emerging or developed, in governments, utilities, energy or
water companies, banks or other investors, and civil
society, to lead. And that's what we need
now. Rachel KyteGroup Vice President and Special
Envoy, Climate Change@rkyte365Photo: Beijing smog. Ilya
Haykinson/Flickr Creative Commons Show Less -

One of the few bright spots at the recent UN
climate talks in Warsaw was the announcement of new
financial commitments to the World Bank’s BioCarbon
Fund.Coming har... Show More +d on the heels of that groundbreaking
initiative for sustainable forest landscapes is another
piece of good news in international efforts to bring more
carbon finance to low-income nations.The governments of the
United Kingdom and Sweden and the Switzerland-based Climate
Cent Foundation have pledged more than $125 million for the
World Bank’s Carbon Initiative for Development (Ci-Dev), a
financial initiative that, like the third tranche of the
BioCarbon Fund, will help the least-developed countries
access financing for low-carbon investments.More
specifically, the new funding allows the World Bank to focus
on helping the world’s poorest countries – especially in
Africa – access carbon finance to develop clean energy
sources.It will enable the development and scaling up of a
diverse range of projects similar to household biogas
systems in Nepal or solar home systems in Bangladesh. It’s
also an example of how the World Bank continues its efforts
to mobilize private-sector investments for clean development
and climate mitigation.We’re showing, through actions on the
ground, that putting a price on carbon is a key part of the
solution to the climate challenge.With carbon markets facing
uncertainty, the Ci-Dev will innovate by providing
performance-based payments in the form of purchases of
certified emission reductions (commonly called “carbon
credits”) – and show how this, in turn, attracts private
sector participation. Doing so will also help sustain
capacity and knowledge in carbon market instruments.But
Ci-Dev will do more than just make sure existing knowledge
isn’t lost. Building on lessons from more than a decade of
market experience, Ci-Dev is also promoting innovation in
the procedures of the Clean Development Mechanism
(CDM).Historically, low-income countries have not benefitted
from CDM as much as middle-income countries have. We’re
hoping that Ci-Dev can make a contribution to narrowing this
gap. It means we must reduce transaction costs, remove
uncertainty, and align the CDM requirements to the reality
of investment and business management in low-income
countries.As a result, these countries should be able to
gain a larger share of future carbon finance flows. They
will also gain access to clean low-carbon technologies and
avoid carbon emissions, with the participation of the
private sector.The main focus of Ci-Dev will be in areas
where communities and households will benefit from rural
electrification and energy efficiency. As such, it’s a
concrete action the World Bank Group is taking in support of
the United Nations’ Sustainable Energy for All Initiative
(SE4ALL).About 1.2 billion people still lack electricity,
while 2.8 billion rely on wood or other solid fuels to cook
and heat their homes. The resulting indoor air pollution
killed more than 3.5 million people in 2010.With its focus
on access to energy for the very poor, Ci-Dev will play its
part in addressing some of these developmental,
environmental, and health challenges. Show Less -

Between 2007 and 2011, Peru doubled
electricity access rates from 30 percent of households to
over 60 percent. The national rural
electrification program has ... Show More +been supported by US$50 million
in World Bank financing and US$10 million from the Global
Environment Facility (GEF).This is a remarkable achievement,
but to make sure that the new opportunities benefit local
people in rural areas, an additional initiative was
launched. This “productive uses of electricity” pilot
project adapted lessons from two World Bank-supported
activities in Indonesia under which the national utility
reached out to local communities through NGOs. In
the Peruvian case, competitively selected NGOs were
contracted to help rural enterprises identify appropriate
electrical equipment, conduct market assessments, prepare
business plans, access existing sources of finance, and link
with suppliers and buyers. “Electricity fairs” and
community theater productions were used to help spread the
word about how electricity could be put to use.To date, the
pilot program has helped 5,000 small businesses and
households in rural areas use the electricity to develop new
enterprises. For example, a collective mill in Piura whose
1,000 members had long processed their grain by hand was
able to purchase mechanized equipment and was connected to
the grid.In Rwanda, the International Development
Association (IDA), the World Bank’s fund for the poorest,
helped provide grid-based power to nearly 1 million people
between 2009 and 2012, a threefold increase, while schools
and health centers achieved a 70 percent increase in
connections.In Bangladesh, over 2 million low-income rural
households now have electricity – delivered by solar panels
– thanks to a project partly financed by IDA. Some 4 million
Africans are using off-grid lighting, thanks to Lighting
Africa, an IFC program.These leaps forward reflect the
priority many developing countries attach to bridging the
electric power access deficit that still affects 1.2 billion
of the world’s people. They are part of a global effort by
the World Bank Group that has brought electricity to 41
million people since 2007, a quarter of whom were reached
with off-grid power.This concentration on expanding access
has been reinforced by the Energy Sector Directions Paper,
recently endorsed by the Bank Group’s Board. It describes
how the World Bank Group will help client countries secure
the affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy supply
needed to end extreme poverty and promote shared
prosperity.The Bank helps countries find renewable energy
solutions wherever possible. Projects include
support for concentrating solar plants in North Africa,
off-grid household solar in Mongolia, wind farms in Turkey,
and geothermal power in Kenya. In South Africa, IFC is
investing $143 million and coordinating $264 million in
parallel loans to build two concentrated solar power
projects. In Indonesia, the Bank is helping boost geothermal
power generation in South Sumatra and North Sulawesi, to add
150 MW of capacity, thereby displacing coal-based power
generation.Hydropower is the largest source of affordable
renewable energy deployable at scale in developing
countries. Countries in Africa and South Asia, where the
access deficit is greatest – 306 million in India, 82
million in Nigeria, 56 million in DRC – are also among those
with the largest unrealized hydropower potential, as are
Nepal and Myanmar. About 90 percent of Africa's
hydropower potential has not yet been tapped. The World Bank
Group is committed to responsible, sustainable development
of hydropower projects of all sizes and types depending on
the local context – run of the river, pumped storage, and
reservoir – including off-grid projects that meet
decentralized rural needs.Support for hydropower has
included financing for the Bujagali run-of-river project,
now meeting half of Uganda’s electricity needs. Two IDA
credits supported the Felou hydroelectric project,
increasing by 63 megawatts (MW) low-cost power to utilities
in Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal.Two recent examples are
financing of $340 million to support the 80 megawatt Rusumo
Falls hydroelectric project for Burundi, Rwanda and
Tanzania, announced by Bank Group President Jim Kim last
May. Another $150 million is provided for rehabilitation of
the Ruzizi I and II hydroelectric projects and financing for
Ruzizi III, supplying electricity for Rwanda, Burundi and
DRC. These projects and others like them can transform whole
economies and the lives of millions.On the necessary global
transition to a more sustainable energy path, a recent World
Bank-led Global Tracking Framework Report on Sustainable
Energy for All, emphasizes the role of developed and
emerging market countries. It shows that progress on
expanding renewable energy and improving energy efficiency
depends on action by the world’s 20 largest economies, as
they are the world’s largest energy consumers, responsible
for 80 percent of greenhouse gases emitted. Action
to stop climate change depends on getting the balance right
among developed countries, where the Bank Group does not
engage in the energy sector, with the compelling development
needs of low-income countries, where the Bank Group supports
energy and development aspirations.Bank Group energy
financing – including IBRD, IDA, IFC, and MIGA guarantees –
has totaled $49 billion over the six years since 2008, of
which $19.2 billion was for energy efficiency and renewable
energy projects, while $8.1 billion supported transmission
and distribution expansion, and another $8.3 billion other
energy programs, including policy and regulatory reform.
Over the same period, the Climate Investment Funds committed
over $7.6 billion to date to clean energy projects, and IFC
committed a total of $4.5 billion to renewable energy and
energy efficiency elements of projects in sectors other than energy. Show Less -

After an intense and exciting week in
Stockholm for World Water Week, it is time to look back at
some conclusions of the conference and the way forward for
next yea... Show More +r. I was in Stockholm as a “Lead Rapporteur” and
reported in the closing plenary session on “Cooperation to
achieve equity by balancing competing demands”; other teams
reported on “Managing waters across borders,” “Responding to
Global Change,” and “Closing the science-policy-practice
loop” (see closing plenary here). This is my
attempt to summarize over 100 sessions, you can find all the
sessions in the WWW website.I was a rapporteur for the
Water-Energy-Food Nexus so in full disclosure my bias is
towards that topic. Please feel free to add in the comments
anything that you thought was relevant this year. Below are
what I would describe as the key takeaways from the closing
plenary session:Water is not an isolated sector, but a
connectorAn issue that was repeated during the week and in
the closing plenary session is that the water community must
stop thinking of “water” as a sector. Water crosses sectors
and regions and is vital for most human activities. There
was also a lot of talk on the “nexus” and many sessions
focused on finding new ways to improve cooperation to
address all sectors in a holistic way, as the optimal
solution for one can have negative impacts on others.
Therefore, cooperation is the key to achieve security,
efficiency, and sustainability.One speaker suggested that
the water community doesn’t live in a black box anymore, it
swims in an aquarium, able to see the other sectors, but not
always reaching them. A glass wall is still between us. I
think it is an appropriate way to say that although we are
aware of the other sectors more than ever (this year there
seemed to be more people from the private sector, for
example), the water community is still not fully engaging
them. The good news is that many cross-sectoral initiatives
and powerful partnerships were created in the last year.
However, most of them are still led by the water community
(water people talking to water people). In order to make the
most change, the water community needs to engage across
sectors even more. Given that next year’s WWW topic is on
Energy and Water (same for World Water Day 2014), I expect
that that next year’s conference will have a big presence of
energy community members!See infographic on Integrated Urban
Water ManagementRead about World Bank’s Thirsty Energy
initiativeTools are important to visualize and understand
the problem but… not enoughA lot of new tools were presented
during the conference on the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus,
on transboundary waters, on data visualization, etc. These
tools are powerful to translate science to policy makers,
but many of them are too expensive, data intense and
therefore they are very costly to maintain and update for
most developing countries. Tools are not enough. It’s “easy”
to develop a tool, but the important last step is to ensure
that they are the appropriate tool and that they are used in
decision making processes. To do so, capacity building is
crucial.New approaches In several sessions there seemed to
be a shift to thinking about the role for markets to deliver
sustainable water and sanitation services to the poor.
Different sessions focused on the monetary value of water
and on the social, environment and economic costs of the
lack of water and sanitation services. Other sessions also
suggested the need to shift to a risk-based water security
approach. Water security can no longer be defined as
sufficient access to water; risk management needs to be
included in the equation. Measuring costs to translate water
risks into decision making was suggested several times as a
useful approach to involve the private sector and the policy
makers.See infographic on Economics of Sanitation Initiative
(What costs the world US$260billion each year?)Read Study
Reveals Large, Untapped Potential for Water and Sanitation
Services for the World’s PoorPost 2015: a call for putting
water at the center of development by 2030 Many
practitioners at the conference agreed that the Post 2015
goals should include a dedicated water goal covering water
management, WASH and wastewater, but also that water should
be considered and integrated into all relevant areas, such
as energy and food security. Dr. Yumkella, new CEO of
Sustainable Energy For All, gave a remarkable speech and
asked the water community to give him a good water indicator
that he could push for to be added in the Energy SDG.And
finally, focus on action and on localized solutionsIt’s time
now to focus on the implementation of already identified
tools, technological advancements, and new approaches (such
as many of the great proposals that were presented during
the conference) and evaluate and document what works and
what doesn’t. There is also a need to move from the global
analysis (which is very useful to quantify the problem) to
localized and contextualized solutions that involve local
partners. One solution definitely doesn’t fit all.
Participants concluded that during the past years there has
been positive progress in awareness, knowledge and tools
development but there is a need to advance on policy
coherence and sectorial planning. Show Less -

In July, the U.S. Department of Energy and
the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released reports
(see U.S. Energy Sector Vulnerabilities to Climate
Change a... Show More +nd Extreme Weather and Water-Smart Power:
Strengthening the U.S. Electricity System in a Warming
World) highlighting the energy sector’s vulnerability to
future water constraints. The reports’ findings
paint a worrisome picture: currently, 60% of coal power
plants in the U.S. are experiencing water stress; hydropower
is threatened due to more frequent and severe droughts; and
energy infrastructure is endangered by water variability due
to climate change.Water is critical for producing power, and
vice versa. Almost all energy generation processes require
significant amounts of water, and the treatment and
transport of water requires energy, mainly in the form of
electricity. Even though the interdependency between water
and energy is gaining wider recognition worldwide, water and
energy planning often remain distinct. The tradeoffs
involved in balancing one need against the other in this
“energy-water nexus,” as it is called, are often not clearly
identified or taken into account, complicating possible
solutions.Population and economic growth, urbanization, and
increasing demand for food and energy place competing
pressures on water. According to the IEA’s World Energy
Outlook 2012, water consumption for energy generation will
increase by 85% over 2010 to 2035, posing a serious
challenge to many countries around the world.In the U.S.
several power plants were affected by low water flows or
high water temperatures. In India, in February
2013, a thermal power plant with installed capacity of 1130
MW shut down due to a severe water shortage in the
Marathwada region. France was forced to reduce or halt
production in nuclear power plants in the past, due to high
water temperatures threatening cooling processes during
heatwaves. Recurring and prolonged droughts are threatening
hydropower capacity in many countries, such as Sri Lanka,
China and Brazil. These stresses will mount as emerging
economies, like China, will double their energy consumption
in the next 40 years.To mitigate the challenges of the
nexus, the World Bank Group recently started Thirsty Energy,
a global initiative in partnership with the World
Bank's water and energy departments and supported by
the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP).
Thirsty Energy will contribute to the Sustainable Energy for
All (SE4All) initiative by evaluating trade-offs and
synergies between water and energy planning. It will also
identify potential constraints resulting from their
interdependency, and develop evidence-based operational
tools to assist developing countries assess the economic and
social implications of water constraints in energy security
and power expansion plans. See Thirsty Energy, the first
paper in a series of working papers.One of the pilot
countries selected for Thirsty Energy is South Africa, a
country with important water issues and large energy
expansion plans. The Bank is working with partners there to
incorporate water allocation quantities by catchment area
and marginal costs in energy optimization tools and plans.
This enables planners to assess, using economic tools,
whether or not, or to what extent, cross-sectoral
competition will impact the technology mix in energy
generation. Through case studies such as this, the Bank aims
to reduce energy projects’ vulnerability to water
constraints, and encourage water and energy to be planned in
an integrated manner to maximize benefits. Through Thirsty
Energy, the Bank and its partners will work to break
disciplinary silos that prevent cross-sectoral planning and
learning and to ensure the “sustainability” factor in
Sustainable Energy for All. Show Less -

Energy is essential to heat homes and cook
meals. It is needed to deliver proper health care in
hospitals and to teach children. It is essential for
economic growth... Show More + and development and for powering industries,
farms and businesses. It is at the heart of any effort to
make a better life possible for people all over the world,
in particular for the world’s poorest.First, energy has to
be produced, and it needs to increasingly be produced
in sustainable ways as the world steps up to the
challenges of climate change. At the same time, improvements
in how efficiently our buildings, factories, vehicles and
appliances use energy offer huge potential to get more
benefit out of less energy. Energy efficiency can make
energy more affordable for the poor, and it can reduce
emissions. This is why energy efficiency is an
important element of the World Bank Group’s recent Energy
Sector Directions Paper. It is reflected in the Bank Group’s
growing energy efficiency portfolio. Lending for energy
efficiency work has increased, totaling $7.5 billion for
fiscal years 2008-2013, accounting for roughly 15.3% of all
energy financing approved in that period. This has
included support for a national program in Mexico, in which
the government set up 1,110 points of exchange at which
millions of people turned in incandescent light bulbs in
return for 22.9 million more efficient CFLs, achieving a
total saving of about 1,400 gigawatt hours, as much energy
as is consumed in the entire Mexican state of Nayarit or
Colima. It earned Mexico an entry in the Guinness Book of
World Records for the number of light bulbs
distributed. The Bank’s engagement in energy
efficiency also includes more than $3 billion in financing
in the past decade to Eastern Europe and Central Asia,
helping countries like Belarus, which reduced its energy
intensity by 60% over the past 15 years, and Uzbekistan,
which saved 50,000 megawatt hours of energy that would
otherwise have been lost to inefficiencies. Total savings to
the region from energy efficiency projects, programs, and
initiatives over the last 10 years are estimated at 42.5 TWh
per year, equivalent to the total amount of power generated
in New Zealand in 2010. Investments in the region are
already saving an estimated 7.5 million tons of CO2 every
year. The Bank Group has also been working closely
with China to support its energy efficiency efforts in major
cities such as Shanghai, providing advice and financing to
retrofit inefficient buildings. This project and others have
contributed to China’s energy efficiency achievements, whose
scale was revealed in the recent Sustainable Energy for All
Global Tracking Framework Report. It found that China’s
energy efficiency drive has resulted in the world's
largest absolute energy savings for a single
country. Almost half of all energy generated across
the world is used to cool, light, and ventilate buildings.
Much of the Bank Group’s energy efficiency support has
therefore provided financing and policy advice on public
procurement of energy efficient services and products in
cities and buildings. Improving planning in cities –
particularly the fast-growing megacities of the developing
world – is critical to the transition to a more sustainable
energy future. The Bank’s Energy Sector Management
Assistance Program (ESMAP) has developed the TRACE tool to
help municipal governments identify and prioritize
opportunities to reduce urban energy use. In Rio
de Janeiro, TRACE is being used to help make next year’s
FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics the most energy
efficient ever. The Bank Group’s International
Finance Corporation is also working directly with investors
and through financial intermediaries to provide financing in
this area, including through the Excellence in Design for
Greater Efficiencies (Edge) Green Buildings Certification
System, which is helping owners design and retrofit
buildings to be more sustainable. Energy efficiency
improvements are a crucial part of any effort to reduce
carbon emissions and keep global warming below the critical
level of 2 degrees Celsius. Such improvements can also
deliver huge savings in energy costs to households, as well
as production, mining, manufacturing, and commercial
operations in public and private sectors alike. Those are
two reasons why doubling the rate of improvement in energy
efficiency by 2030 is one of the three goals of the
Sustainable Energy for All initiative, co-chaired by World
Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim and UN Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon. No doubt about it: energy efficiency is scaling
up to cut costs and emissions. May the efforts
multiply!RelatedInfographic: Sustainable Energy for All -
What Will it Take? Show Less -

There is a continuing controversy over what
constitutes energy poverty and whether it is synonymous with
income poverty or lack of access to electricity.
Seve... Show More +ral approaches are used to define and measure energy
poverty, taking into account both demand and supply of
alternative energy sources, including biomass, LPG, and
electricity. But as yet, no consensus has emerged
for measuring and monitoring energy poverty and explaining
why and how it differs from income poverty.Like income
poverty, energy poverty may be defined by the minimum energy
consumption needed to sustain lives. But unlike
income poverty—based on the concept of a poverty line
defined by the minimum consumption of food and non-food
items necessary to sustain a livelihood—energy poverty lacks
a well-established energy poverty line to determine the
minimum amount of energy needed for living.
Current indicators used by such organizations as the World
Bank and the International Energy Agency (IEA) measure
energy poverty indicators as outputs (e.g., lack of
electricity connections) rather than outcomes (e.g.,
electricity consumption and associated welfare
gains).Recently, Douglas Barnes, Hussain Samad, and I
developed an approach that defines an energy poverty line as
a threshold of energy consumption needed to sustain
life. This approach is tested using household
survey data from Bangladesh and India. The findings show
that, although energy consumption rises with income, the
increase is not uniform. At the lower end of the
income profile, growth in energy consumption remains flat as
income rises. Only after a certain low-income
threshold is reached does energy consumption also begin to
rise (Figure 1).Figure 1. Energy Consumption
Growth and Income Deciles, Showing Energy Poverty LineThe
horizontal line that captures flat growth is the energy
poverty line, defined as the point above which household
energy consumption rises along with income. Households that
consume less energy than this threshold amount are
considered energy poor.How Many Are “Energy Poor” in
India?Applying this concept of the energy poverty line to
India, we find that 28 percent of urban residents are energy
poor, while 20 percent are income poor. In rural
areas, a sweeping 59 percent are energy poor, while only 23
percent are income poor. With better access to
modern energy services, as in urban India, energy
consumption is relatively similar for each income decile,
meaning that income poverty can track energy
poverty. In urban India, 17 percent of the income
non-poor are energy poor, compared to 41 percent in rural
India. By contrast, 64 percent of urban households are both
income non-poor and energy non-poor, compared to only 37
percent of rural households (Figure 2).Figure 2. Comparison
of Energy and Income Poverty in Rural and Urban
India In rural India, households have limited
access to modern energy but relatively easy access to
natural resources, including a variety of biomass.
If they consume enough of those energy sources and use
energy-efficient appliances, they may not be energy
poor. Thus, electricity connection is not
necessary for determining who are energy poor. But
if rural households are energy non-poor, with abundant
biomass fuels, or energy poor, despite having abundant
biomass fuels, then they must deal with such issues as
resource depletion and the health risks associated with
burning biomass energy in open fires or traditional
stoves. Thus access to energy services matters, as
does the efficiency of energy consumption.This means energy
consumption must be properly weighed to determine the energy
consumption basket to measure energy poverty.
Similarly, simple access to modern energy, such as
electricity, does not ensure households are energy
non-poor. How much they consume and whether the
electricity supply is reliable are also key
factors. Energy poverty thus depends on access,
efficiency, pricing, and reliability.Why Does Energy Poverty
Differ from Income Poverty?Both income poverty and energy
poverty are expected to decrease along with increasing
household income, but the pattern may differ by income
decile and geographic area. In rural India, the
gap between expenditure on food and non-food items
(including energy) and energy poverty is wide and consistent
for all income deciles, but is much smaller in urban India
(Figure 3).The association between expenditure poverty and
energy poverty depends on the level of access to modern
energy sources and the efficient use of traditional
ones. In urban India, where people have reliable
access to modern energy services, such as electricity and
LPG, energy poverty closely tracks expenditure or income
poverty. But in rural India, where households are
relatively poor with limited access to modern energy
services, depending mainly on low-cost, inefficient energy
sources, energy poverty is higher than income poverty.Figure
3. Expenditure and Energy Poverty in Rural and Urban
IndiaAlthough income is a key factor in eliminating energy
poverty, energy policies and access to higher- quality
energy services also matter. The Global Tracking
Framework, a new multi-agency study led by the World Bank
and the IEA, underscores that business as usual will not
suffice to achieve the goals of the Sustainable Energy for
All initiative. While improved and equitable
access to modern energy, such as electricity, is necessary,
more efficient use of traditional energy is equally
important in moving toward achieving universal access to
reliable and affordable modern energy. Because an
overwhelming percentage of the poor still rely on
traditional energy services, such as biomass, more efficient
use of traditional energy services can help reduce energy
poverty. Similarly, improved reliability of modern
energy supply in situations where service is erratic is also
helpful. Once a better understanding of energy
poverty is achieved, pro-poor policies that influence energy
access and pricing of modern energy services can be
implemented to reduce energy poverty. Show Less -

If you want to fundamentally change how
countries use energy, value their natural environments, or
combat climate change, you have to talk to the people who
hold th... Show More +e purse strings.That’s what we’re doing this week.
Finance ministers from countries around the world are in
Washington for the annual World Bank/IMF Spring
Meetings. We’re talking with them about these
issues and more as we help countries shift to more
sustainable development.Underlying everything: climate
change. This isn’t just an environmental challenge – it’s a
fundamental threat to economic development and the fight
against poverty. I can’t repeat that often enough. If the
world does not take bold action now, a disastrously warming
planet threatens to put prosperity out of reach for millions
and roll back decades of development.We’ll be talking about
climate action in every conversation, including a
ministerial dialogue on sustainable development being
convened by the leaders of the World Bank, the IMF and the
UN.The good news on climate change is the number of cities,
regions, and countries I can point to right now that are
making progress, putting in place the policies and systems
that will successfully reduce their greenhouse gas
emissions. Take carbon markets: China, Chile and more than a
dozen other countries are working on market-based solutions
and learning from one another through the Partnership for
Market Readiness. Networking these markets – something we’re
working on at the World Bank – will strengthen them and help
to build the architecture, that together with ambitious
emissions reduction targets at the national level, can
establish a robust price on carbon that can drive clean
investment.Building a network of carbon markets is one way
to fight climate change and avoid a 4 degree-warmer world.
Another is ending harmful fossil fuel subsidies and shifting
that money to support systems that actually help the poor.
We have to get prices right and get finance
flowing.Sustainable Energy for AllWe’re also committed to
expanding renewable energy and energy efficiency and
securing the goal of providing energy access for all by
2030.Our president, Jim Kim, is chairing a meeting this week
of the Sustainable Energy for All Advisory Board with UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. SE4All’s three goals: ensure
universal access to modern energy services, double the
global rate of improvement in energy efficiency, and double
the share of renewable energy in the global energy
mix.Natural Capital AccountingWe know it is difficult to get
different decisions without different data. Valuing natural
resources is another step toward more sustainable growth.
We’re meeting with the Wealth Accounting and Valuation of
Ecosystem Services Partnership and with many of the 62
countries that stepped up last spring at Rio+20 to support
the idea of factoring nature into their national
accounts.The first movers are already demonstrating an
impressive array of ideas: water accounts in Botswana;
ecosystem accounts in Australia to help manage the Great
Barrier Reef; forest accounts in Kenya to see how regulating
forest services contributes to the environment. Through
natural capital accounting, these countries can see the full
extent of their natural assets – an average of 36% of
low-income countries’ wealth.Services for the
PoorSustainable development must also be inclusive
development. Bettering human lives and ending poverty is
central to everything we do.On Friday, you can watch live
online as UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson and
UNICEF Executive Director Tony Lake join me for a
conversation about financing and business solutions to close
the gap in access to basic sanitation – one of the
Millennium Development Goals that lags farthest behind. The
UN is calling for an end to open defecation by 2025, and
we’re on board to help. That means moving faster to provide
access to sanitation for 2.5 million people currently
without.I’m looking forward to all of these conversations
and to the progress we can make as forward-thinking finance
ministers continue to incorporate sustainable development
into their national decisionmaking. No one group alone can
make all of this happen– it will take global coalitions of
the working, public and private sector, all doing their part
to stop climate change and put the world on a sustainable
path for a cleaner, more inclusive future.Rachel KyteVice
President for Sustainable
Developmentwww.worldbank.org/sustainabledevelopmentTwitter: @rkyte365 Show Less -

I’m back from the 2013 Clean Cooking Forum
in Phnom Penh, and impressed with the insights shared by
practitioners and household fuel experts from around the
world. ... Show More +It’s good to see clean cooking at the center of the
global development agenda. But to live up to expectations,
we’ll need to keep working hard.Growing up in the 1960s in a
household of modest means in India, I saw my mother’s acute
distress as she cooked our meals on the floor of our small
kitchen --- using sawdust, charcoal or wood. She suffered
from chronic respiratory illness and died well before her
time. Today, 2.8 billion people, mostly women, still cook as
my mother did, using traditional stoves and fuels. We have
to change that reality. With such tremendous attention on
clean cooking, what can we do to ensure a future where women
(and children) do not die because they cook meals for their
families?A lot is happening in this space. The passion and
commitment of entrepreneurs, government agencies and
non-government actors at the Forum was inspiring.
We are making steady progress, but the challenge is huge and
we need to get on a steeper results curve. I suggested that
we need “accelerators” for faster results. These
accelerators, or “game changers”, are actions we can take to
address the most critical barriers and drastically shift
from business-as-usual.Three such accelerators emerged as
really important ones in the discussions during the
conference:1) Coordinate
multiple sectors and government bodies to create enabling
conditions for clean cooking interventions at the national,
city and local
levels. 2)
Bridge the gap between those seeking finance and those able
to provide it– foundations and non-government agencies,
local financial institutions and equity investors.
Often, we need to bundle smaller projects to remove
obstacles such as transaction costs and lack of access to
willing financiers. This is also true for gaining access to
carbon finance opportunities in this sector, often too small
and dispersed to interest carbon credit
buyers. 3) Create a
body of knowledge, best practice and market information that
is available as a public good to potential entrepreneurs and
market makers, and that helps reduce barriers to their
entry. In this area, the UN Practitioners Network, the
Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and the Sustainable
Energy for All Initiative can play important
roles. The World Bank’s recent report One Goal, Two
Paths: Achieving Universal Access to Modern Energy in East
Asia and the Pacific illustrates how some of these
accelerators have transformed the path to universal modern
cooking solutions in East Asia Pacific (EAP) countries
such as China, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, the
Philippines, and Vietnam.What do you think of when you hear—
China, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia? Fastest economic
growth in the last decade? True. But did you know that half
of the East Asia/Pacific countries’ population—one billion
people—still relies on solid fuels for cooking and heating?
This causes over 600,000 premature deaths each year in the
region.A persistent challenge, as I mentioned in my previous
blog post, is that clean cooking remains a “poor person’s
problem.” Few business people see a viable market in it. So
selling affordable clean cooking fuels (natural gas,
liquefied petroleum gas, and biogas) and improved cookstoves
needs a financing accelerator.The One Goal, Two Paths report
reviews experience in the EAP countries, and recommends
collaborative action by governments, donors, the private
sector and NGOs. The report's suggested “path” has the
EAP countries achieving the Sustainable Energy for All
objective of universal access to modern cooking solutions by
2030.The agenda of the “path”:Promote clean and efficient
cookstoves by making these affordable and profitableChina’s
National Improved Stoves Program, a government initiative,
distributed over 100 million stoves country-wide. Cambodia’s
NGO-led program trained traditional stove makers to produce
improved stoves and integrated them into the supply chain.
One million improved stoves with guaranteed service and
quality were sold in Cambodia from 2003 to 2010.Expand
liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) usageLPG is a clean,
affordable household fuel, and especially efficient in
densely populated settings. Policies that encourage faster
adoption of LPG are recommended. By granting privileges to
LPG suppliers/distributors and keeping LPG’s price low,
Thailand’s LPG promotion program has boosted LPG use by 10%
a year since 1990. Develop biogas energy
systemsBiogas energy systems that transform biomass into
clean burning gas for cooking have huge potential. China has
about 25 million biogas systems in place following its
National Rural Biogas Program. Complementing China’s
national program, the World Bank recently financed an
Eco-farming Project that installed 33,000 biogas digesters
in households. These digesters generate gas from
animal waste.The Bank Group’s East Asia and Pacific Clean
Stoves Initiative, introduced at the Clean Cooking Forum,
provides policy support, capacity building, and knowledge
sharing for China, Indonesia, Mongolia, and Laos PDR. It has
already published several important studies.With concerted
action and knowledge of the game changers, EAP countries’
household clean energy access could soon match their
outstanding economic performance. I’m convinced that the
world can learn from their experience and work together.
Then, we’ll make real, large-scale differences in the lives
of the two-fifths of humanity still tied to traditional
stoves and fuels.Related Studies from East Asia Pacific
Clean Stoves InitiativeCambodia - Pilot project on improving
manufacturing of efficient rural cookstoves
(English)Cambodia - Supporting self-sustaining commercial
markets for improved cookstoves and household biodigesters
(English)Video: Cambodia: The Neang Kongrey Cookstove
Initiative Show Less -

I’m on my way to Phnom Penh, Cambodia for
the 2013 Clean Cooking Forum organized by the
Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. Consider this stunning
fact: &nbs... Show More +p;household air pollution from cooking with
solid fuels kills four million people each year. That’s the
finding of the latest Global Burden of Disease study,
published in December 2012.Unlike malaria, tuberculosis and
HIV/AIDS, for all of which the death toll is dropping every
year, the number of premature deaths due to household air
pollution is actually rising. Why is this happening?About
2.8 billion people, over a third of the world’s population,
rely on open fires or inefficient stoves to cook and heat
their homes. They use solid fuels such as charcoal, wood or
other biomass, animal dung, and coal, all of which produce
toxic smoke that pollutes the air inside and outside their
homes.This is the reality in many developing countries. The
challenge is how to fix it. That’s what this forum in
Cambodia seeks to do. The World Bank’s Energy Sector
Management Assistance Program, or ESMAP, together with the
Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, offers some
recommendations in a forthcoming report, which I will
discuss in Phnom Penh. The key points: The clean
cooking market has immense potential. Think of it: 700
million households spend over US$ 100 billion on cooking
fuel each year. This is a solid base for market development.
Proof of that potential is the strong growth among clean
biomass enterprises and improved cookstove manufacturers in
recent years. Still, the market potential is not
fully realized. Consumers may not know which cookstoves are
more efficient and healthier. Those in the market to buy
clean cookstoves may not have access to the credit they
need. There is a need for donors to support clean cooking
solutions, including to get market activity started.The Bank
launched the Africa Clean Cooking Energy Solutions
initiative – or ACCES – in 2012. It’s a program
designed to make clean fuels and technologies accessible and
affordable in Sub-Saharan Africa. It supports
consumer engagement, business development, access to
financing, as well as support for policy reform that
encourages clean cooking solutions.Senegal, Uganda and the
Democratic Republic of Congo have started piloting
ACCESsince November 2012, with market and consumer research
studies and a regional quality assurance program in
collaboration with the Global Alliance. The World Bank’s
partnership with the Global Alliance started when
the latter was founded in 2010. Both have been
working to bring clean cooking to 100 million
households.Clean cooking is also an important part of the
Sustainable Energy for All initiative, a global
effort to achieve universal access to energy by 2030. Access
to energy is defined as access to both electricity and clean
cooking fuels. I insist on this because clean
cooking fuels are often overlooked in the access agenda.The
household cooking tragedy—a deadly tragedy, as we have
seen—continues, in part, because its victims are the world’s
poorest people. By using market forces, we can save
countless lives and ensure better health and well-being for
families, especially the women and children who make up most
of the victims. When I see the results some countries, such
as China, for example, have achieved in finding safer
cooking solutions, I’m convinced that we can solve this
problem. The challenge is to mobilize the resources and
scale up successful approaches. If we meet it, we can build
a future in which women and children don’t die from toxic
kitchen smoke. Show Less -

It’s been clear here at the World Energy
Summit in Abu Dhabi that the International Renewable Energy
Agency, or IRENA, is fast emerging as a leader in forging a
mor... Show More +e sustainable energy future. With 159 countries—plus the
EU— having joined it, a staff of 70 and a $28-million annual
budget, IRENA held its third Executive Assembly here, making
an impressive show on the sidelines of the summit. One
example is its Renewable Energy Roadmap, which attracted
lively interest among delegates. The Roadmap offers a bad
news-good news assessment: under a business-as-usual
scenario, the renewable share in the global energy mix rises
to 21% by 2030, well behind the SE4ALL objective of over
30%. But with focused action, the agency’s Roadmap finds the
target is achievable.What kind of action is needed? One
first step is to pinpoint locations with the maximum
potential for harnessing renewable energy. To support this,
IRENA launched a Global Atlas of Renewable Energy Potential,
which is a web-based, interactive catalogue and mapping tool
drawing on national, regional and global datasets currently
available for wind and solar potential. The web portal will
be continuously updated, and expanded over time to cover
other renewable energy sources (geothermal, biomass, ocean)
as well as more sophisticated tools (economic
potential).Array of tools to map renewable energyIRENA is
also producing Renewables Readiness Assessments—11 of which
are ready (See examples: Kiribati, Mozambique, Senegal), and
a study on renewable energy costs, based on a robust
database of 8,000 existing projects.This ability to share
data on a single platform should help policy makers, while
also generating interest among investors, by underlining
opportunities of which they would otherwise be unaware. It
will also give energy ministry and utility managers
analytical tools to make decisions on renewable energy
development.These tools offer room for synergies with other
similar efforts, such as that of the World Bank’s Energy
Sector Management Assistance Program’s (ESMAP) Renewable
Resource Mapping initiative. Its data and results will be
fed into the Global Atlas, complementing the existing data
for a whole range of countries.IRENA's current program
emphasizes Sub-Saharan Africa and the Small Island
Developing States, where renewable energy can contribute to
development. Looking ahead, IRENA will need to support
expansion of renewables in Asia, where energy demand is
rising most rapidly, and where reliance on fossil fuels
remains high.Focus on achieving Sustainable Energy for All
goals "An important milestone (China's joining
IRENA) in international efforts to promote renewable
energy." | Adnan Amin, Director General, IRENATwo days
ago, in an encouraging move, China announced that it would
join IRENA. “An important milestone in international efforts
to promote renewable energy,” said Adnan Amin, IRENA’s
Director General. With China joining the agency, IRENA
represents over 90% of the world’s population, underlining
its new leadership role in the move to achieve the
Sustainable Energy for All objectives on universal access to
electricity and clean household fuels, doubling renewable
energy and doubling the rate of improvement of energy
efficiency, all by 2030. Show Less -

French President François Hollande put his
country on the Sustainable Energy for All train here at the
World Energy Future Summit yesterday, affirming
France's supp... Show More +ort for the initiative, whose advisory
board is co-chaired by World Bank President Jim Yong Kim and
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. In a speech devoted to the
theme of preparing for the "après pétrole" era,
Hollande highlighted three steps: first, create
international funds for renewable energy investment pooling
resources from petroleum exporting and importing countries;
second, radically rethink our model of urbanization to make
it less energy intensive; and third, secure a Global Climate
Change Agreement for 2015, France stands ready to host the
CoP and facilitate an agreement.These are all exciting
pledges, very much consistent with some of the efforts the
World Bank and its Energy Sector Management Assistance
Program (ESMAP) has launched to support the Sustainable
Energy for All initiative, such as enhanced efforts on
geothermal power, energy efficiency in cities, and gas
flaring reduction, among others.France's decision to
join Sustainable Energy for All is to be welcomed, as its
world-class energy companies bring valuable expertise to
help achieve the initiative's objectives, that is, to
deliver universal access to electricity and clean household
fuels, double the share of renewable energy in the global
mix, and double the rate of improvement in energy
efficiency—all by 2030. Also, France's close
ties to French-speaking countries in Africa—many of which
are among the 66 countries that have opted in to the
initiative—should help boost momentum behind it.While
President Hollande's address gave grounds for optimism
about global prospects to achieve these energy goals in a
climate-friendly way, Jeffrey Sachs, special advisor to the
UN Secretary General, told energy leaders gathered here
that "we are in serious trouble on climate
change," as only part of the world is close to having
some kind of clean energy road map, that part being the EU.
The EU is responsible for less than 15% of global emissions,
while the biggest emitters, namely the US and China, Sachs
said, do not have a credible plan for cutting emissions.
Global headline numbers for increased reach and investment
in renewables, he added, conceal the fact that wind and
solar continue to meet only a tiny portion of global energy
demand. Gas discoveries, though helpful, will not get us as
far as we ultimately need to go. Sachs announced that he
will lead a solutions network “to do the arithmetic” on what
it will take to get the world on a clean energy trajectory
over the coming year.Almost immediately following
Sachs' frank critique, Chinese Vice Minister of
National Energy Administration Liu Qi announced that his
country will publish in March 2013 an energy strategy
showing clean energy trajectories through to 2050. He said
"deep technical exchanges" are taking place
between China and various European countries on renewable
energy technology, specifically with Germany on solar,
Denmark on wind, the UK on off-shore wind, and Iceland on
geothermal. Like France's President, Liu Qi announced
his country's decision to join the International
Renewable Energy Agency, and affirmed that China will be an
advocate for Sustainable Energy for All. Finally,
the Argentine President - Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner -
reminded the gathering of the large disparities that exist
in per capita energy consumption and carbon emissions among
high, middle and low income countries, and insisted that
these historic inequities need to be reflected in any future
climate deal. She also urged delegates not to discount the
role of nuclear power in the global quest for low carbon
energy.So after Day One at the World Energy Future Summit,
we have encouraging pledges, welcome decisions, lively
debate and building momentum—but also sobering assessments
of the distance we need to travel to achieve sustainable
energy goals. Show Less -

Well before sunrise in the small village of
Msangani, Tanzania, Tunu ali Matekenya begins work at five,
baking fresh bread. Formerly an agricultural
laborer, ... Show More +Tunu’s life has improved thanks to entrepreneurship
training she received in using advanced cookstoves.“The oven
I am using is very efficient, it is easy to use and consumes
less charcoal, which reduces the cost of baking...all this
means more profit” Tunu exclaims proudly.In many areas of
the developing world, women and children spend hours
foraging for wood and other fuel sources then prepare meals
around open fires or primitive cookstoves in poorly
ventilated homes. Not only does this present an obvious fire
hazard, but it also means they are inhaling toxic fumes from
incomplete combustion of toxins that are responsible for
nearly 500,000 premature and preventable deaths annually in
Sub-Saharan Africa. The problem is particularly
acute because 82 percent of the population depends on
charcoal, dung, fuel wood, and forms of biomass for cooking
purposes. Increasing demand on fuel wood and
charcoal is also putting pressure on local natural
resources, contributing to degradation and, potentially,
localized deforestation around booming urban areas across
Africa. Together, traditional biomass cooking and charcoal
production in Sub-Saharan Africa contributed about one
percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2010.These
were the central issues that brought together 120
stakeholders from 15 African countries in Dakar,
Senegal on November 16, 2012 for the launch of the
“Africa Clean Cooking Energy Solutions” (ACCES)
initiative.ACCES aims to promote enterprise-based,
large-scale dissemination and adoption of clean cooking
solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa. The initiative is part of
the World Bank’s engagement to expand and improve household
access to clean energy.In Dakar, the urgency to scale-up use
of clean cookstoves was palpable and many participants
pressed for solutions to this long-standing energy
challenge. One panelist, Bill Farmer of Uganda Carbon Bureau
called on the World Bank to “Be adventurous… and take
risks.”Developments in the private sector are a key part of
the clean energy story. Technological innovation, better
performance and impacts, and innovative business models are
helping to meet the growing demand for clean cooking
solutions. Many companies present at the Dakar event were
optimistic about the potential for growth and are beginning
to invest. Some like the Rwandan-based company,
Inyenyeri, are integrating fuel and stove offerings to
exploit the benefits of vast cooking fuel market.Tunu’s
business is growing, and she now also mentors women in her
community.“The business has changed my life tremendously,”
she told me. “I have built a modern house, and my children
are attending a good school. I have also been able to extend
my support to my brother’s children.”This is an exciting
time for the Energy sector – we are seeing
firsthand how clean cooking can change lives. Furthermore,
growing momentum through the Global Alliance for Clean
Cookstoves and a focus on modern energy for cooking under
the UN Sustainable Energy for All initiative has catapulted
the issue onto the global stage.The World Bank’s ACCES
initiative is part of this momentum, geared to improving the
lives of millions of Africans, one hearth at a time. Show Less -